TOP seed Pete Sampras brushed former champion Ivan Lendl aside at the
Australian Open Tennis Championships in Melbourne yesterday . . . but
refused to dismiss his opponent as a spent force.
Sampras rallied from a break down in the first and third sets to
subdue Lendl 7-6, 6-2, 7-6 in a Centre Court fourth-round battle lasting
two hours and 20 minutes.
The scoreline slightly flattered 22-year-old Sampras, but for the
second weekend in a row Lendl failed to take a set off his younger
rival. The 33-year-old winner of the 1989 and 1990 Australian Opens lost
7-6, 6-4 to Sampras in the final of the New South Wales Open eight days
ago.
''If I was him, I would keep going,'' said Sampras, who believes the
former world No.1, now ranked seventeenth in the world, can still test
the game's elite.''
Defending champion Jim Courier rounded off a busy day by thumping
South African Wayne Ferreira 6-3,
6-4, 6-2 and now faces Goran Ivanisevic, who dismissed South African
Grant Stafford 6-3, 6-2, 7-6.
In the women's singles, Steffi Graf defeated France's Sandrine Testud
6-1, 6-2 and was joined in the last eight by Japan's Kimiko Date, who
disposed of American Ginger Helgeson 7-5, 6-1.
* HEATHER Lockhart upset the rankings yesterday when she recorded her
second win in 11 months over Scottish No.1 Michele Mair to win the
women's singles at the LTA Winter Series at the Gannochy Centre,
Stirling.
Mair seemed to have the final under control, racing to a 6-1, 2-0
lead. But the resilient Lockhart broke back in the fourth game and won
the second set tie break by 7-3. The Newlands player survived three
match points in the tenth game of the third set, and another on the
twelfth point of the tie-break before recording a marathon 1-6, 7-6, 7-6
victory in just more than three hours.
Ken Wood justified his top seeding when he retained the men's title
without dropping a set, defeating Graham Alston of Giffnock by 7-5, 6-1.
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